Shouldn't all stakeholders have an input earlier in the cycle

Yes, and it was never a case. I would really appreciate a system in which we have a fixed maximum percentage for any budget line minus the part outvoted by all the stakeholders.
Like for example max 2% for witnesses, but if 50% of all stakeholders have voted for "minus" it would be 1% only.
A huge amount of computing power is spent to decide that this particular meme will get a few cents more that another meme. Some part of this computing power surely could be reallocated to allow all the stakeholders have a say on the global parameters too.